


Eyes Like Stars

by Quixcy



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: Both Book and Film Compliant, Canon Compliant, Drabble, F/M, Oneshot, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, The Years Between Howl Meeting Sophie, and also the book, cherry picked what i wanted from the film, i just wanted to feel something again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24748630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quixcy/pseuds/Quixcy
Summary: Howl had looked for Sophie in the face of everyone he met for years, waiting to find the girl who promised to help. And he finds her in the quaint town of Market Chipping on the most unlikeliest of days.
Relationships: Sophie Hatter & Howl Pendragon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	Eyes Like Stars

**Author's Note:**

> So, while the film and the book diverse widely, I do like parts of both, especially Sophie’s time-traveling escapade, and the possible subsequent ripples it has on Howl’s life. Howl himself here is more of his book form — loud, obnoxious, preferably drunk. Also, in my head Howl is 10000% bisexual.
> 
> And anyway, please enjoy!

_Find me in the future_ , she had said.

A young woman with starlight hair and thick gray eyebrows that crinkled as if she was going to cry. He knew her face, he saw it every time he closed his eyes ever since that day in the flowering Wastes. Eyes that shone like stars, a hand reaching out to him, as she was dragged into some temporal dark unknown.

_I know how to help you, Howl_ , she had promised. She had known his name. She had been familiar with him. In her voice, she sounded like she... she sounded like she had made that promise with every spark of her soul.

It was a promise that stayed sweet even as the years grew dark and sour, and he grew tall, and the world grew dull.

_Find me in the future._

He didn’t know how far into the future—ten years? Twenty? Thirty? He didn’t know, but he kept looking for her everywhere. In the days he used to spend in Madam Suliman’s tutelage, now he wandered through Ingary with a chest so hollow he could swear that when the world was quiet and he was on the cusp of sleep, he could hear his own breath echoing in his chest. He looked for her in every crowd—at the seaside markets in Porthaven, and in all of the country festivities in Kingsbury.

He looked and looked, and he never found her. And after a while—fifteen and a half years, to be exact—he began to think that, perhaps, she had been a figment of his imagination. She had disappeared, after all, right before his eyes.

“No, I saw her too,” the fire demon who ate his heart said. Calcifer crackled and popped in the hearth, and Howl fed him another log.

He sighed. “She might’ve been a figment to us both.”

“I think she’s real. I think you’re losing hope.”

“It’s hard to have hope without a heart,” Howl told the fire demon wryly. Not bitterly, because he wasn’t bitter about it at all. He had saved Calcifer’s life, and he refused to dance with the thought of that being a mistake.

In the meantime, there were aways warm bodies to keep him company at night, when his hollow chest was at it loudest; beautiful women with coiffed curls and rosy perfumes, and men who bit at his collarbone and smelled like sandalwood, and the years passed.

He hadn’t really expected to stop in to Market Chipping when he did, but he had run out of ingredients for his blonde hair dye, and he refused to let the roots get spotty.

“Don’t you have a date in Kingsbury?” Asked Calcifer, eyeing Howl, who tossed on his favorite coat—a blue and silver quilted silk number with large sleeves and many hidden pockets—and checked himself in a filthy mirror beside the fireplace.

Michael, Howl’s apprentice, groused from his workbench, “Yeah, with the King.”

“Really? I thought he was—”

“Not that kind of date, Calcifer,” Howl interjected quickly. “The bad kind, and I’d rather not talk about war today.”

Michael rolled his eyes, “He’s just going to keep sending summons until—”

“Oh look! It seems like there’s a festival down in Market Chipping today,” he interrupted, glancing out of the window at the small town below. He’d been there quite a few times before—there was a bakery there that sold excellent tea cakes—but he’d never really thought much about the quaint little town with its orderly row houses and colorful rooftops, and the train that snaked through the middle. The town looked rather dreary, really.

Except today. Today it was alive with colors.

“Ah,” sighed Michael, thinking, “it’s May, sin’t it? May Day, probably. Oh.” He frowned, a thought occurring. “It’s my birthday.” He sounded very shocked himself, as though he’d lost track of time. He trained his eyes down on his magic work. “A bothersome thing, really.”

“Bothersome?” Howl echoed, glancing a look at Calcifer, who gave his best fiery shrug. “That’s brilliant! While I’m in town, I’ll go by the bakery you like and get you a cake, how’s that?”

Michael looked at Howl, and then looked away again. “You don’t have to, really.”

“Nonsense! I might be heartless, but I’m not cruel,” he replied pointedly, and made for the door to the castle.

His apprentice jerked to stand, a piece of paper in his hand. “Wait, Howl, I’ve a question about this spell—”

“Calcifer, make sure he doesn’t do any work today,” Howl tossed over his shoulder before he closed the door behind him and stepped down into the hilly outcrop that surrounded Market Chipping.

Whatever reply Michael shouted, it was muffled through the door. Probably for the best, really. That boy didn’t know how to stop and have a little fun. If Howl had a heart, he would’ve been quite sad about Michael’s quick dismissal about his birthday, but seeing as how he did not, he was simply a little bit annoyed. Well, Howl doubted his apprentice should be like him in every aspect.

There wasn’t an enchanted moving castle big enough for another handsome, flirty, lazy, cowardly wizard such as himself.

The trek down to Market Chipping was brisk, as the wind was a bit harsh on the moors today, but he made it down to the outskirts of the town in half an hour. It took another half to cajole the shopkeeper where he purchased his dyes to sell him some ingredients before she closed up for the day to celebrate May Day.

“You’re lucky you’re one of my best customers,” the woman said, wagging her finger.

Howl laughed. “Not _the_ best?”

The woman barked a laugh. “Ha! That goes to the Miss Hatter. She buys all sorts of dyes for her hats.”

He chortled. “A Hatter who makes hats, how charming. What kind of old maid is she, I wonder?”

“See for yourself, Mr. Jenkins,” she replied, nudging her chin toward the shop window. “There she goes. Poor dear, I haven’t seen her out in weeks...”

Howl barely heard the rest of her sentence, because when he glanced over his shoulder toward the shop window, to the mousy girl briskly crossing the street, time seemed to stop.

Suddenly he was in flowering Wastes again, a star in his hands, that silver-haired maiden reaching her hand out toward him, pleading with him to find her— _find her_ —

Sometime, somewhere, some place in the future.

He couldn’t remember exactly when he stopped looking for her face in the crowd, or when he stopped expecting to find her. Maybe it was a week ago, a year—ten years. Maybe he never really believed that she existed, despite what Calcifer said.

He didn’t know how he knew it was her, but he did. Something inside of him did—something deep, and light, and small, almost gone. Her hair was auburn-ish brown, and she looked so much slighter than she had in his memories, but then again he was a good few feet taller, and fifteen years grown.

But it was her—wasn’t it? No, it couldn’t be, but what if...

_What if..._

“Excuse me,” he mumbled, paying the woman a few coins too many as he grabbed the brown bag with the ingredients and shoved them into his coat pocket. He hurried out of the shop, the bell chiming as he went.

She waited at the crosswalk at the end of the road, rocking backwards and forwards on her heels, as if she didn’t want to be here. People surrounded her, waiting as well, laughing and flirting in their May Day best. But she wore a dull gray dress, as if the joy of the town couldn’t find her to paint her happy. He opened his mouth to call her name but—

He didn’t know it.

“Oy!” He shouted instead. “Oy— _Hatter girl_!”

She began to turn around at the sound of his voice, and in the crowd their eyes met. And he knew. He recognized her eyes. They shone like stars under bushy brown eyebrows, and even from this far away he knew they were crinkled together in vexation, and all he wanted to do was press his thumb between them and smooth out the skin, and tell her there was nothing to be afraid of—even though he was terrified.

Oh God, he was so terrified he wished he’d done this drunk. Or at least a little less sober.

Something in his hollow chest stirred. Something strange, something sparking, something almost alive.

_I’ve found you, I’ve found you_ , the words knocked against his hollow rib cage almost like a heart beat—

_I’ve found you—_

When Calcifer, true to Howl’s wishes, shot fireworks out of the chiminies for Michael’s birthday. They burst in bright colors of gold and greens and pinks. Most of the people in Market Square turned to watch, but the girl quickly broke his gaze, and darted into one of the alleyways leading away from the crowds, pulling her had down low over her head as she did, and disappeared.

Fifteen and a half years, and she was finally there. She was real. She was alive. And that small, flickering part of him finally felt alive again, too. It was hope. Not much, not enough, but it was a beginning. And Howl knew as much as any wizard that the greatest spells began with a spark.

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously the next part is where, depending on whether you want to go the film or book route, he would follow her into the alley and either a) save her from soldiers or b) try to flirt with her and fail miserably.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
